Art Held Hostage: The Battle over the Barnes Collection

“Money, pretension, horrid behavior by cultured people” (New York) —John Anderson’s tale delivers it all in fabulously juicy detail. This is the story of how a fabled art foundation—the greatest collection of impressionist and postimpressionist art in America, including 69 Cézannes, 60 Matisses, and 44 Picassos, among many priceless others—came to be, and how more than a decade of legal squabbling brought it to the brink of collapse and to a move that many believe betrayed the wishes of the foun